A New Haven police officer is being held in Las Vegas on $100,000 bail after a court appearance Saturday morning. Las Vegas police say Robert "B.J." Ferraro was at the wheel when the SUV he was driving flipped, killing fellow New Haven officer Joshua Castellano, 35.
Ferraro is charged with DUI resulting in death and reckless driving. He's been placed on administrative leave by the New Haven Police Department.
A police crash report says Ferraro, 34, of East Haven, was speeding before the Rolls Royce Cullinan carrying six people careened into an intersection several blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip. It ran off the road and collided with an occupied Ford Mustang, utility poles and a fire hydrant before flipping, ejecting Castellano.
Police say Ferraro "showed signs of impairment" and was arrested.
There were two other New Haven officers in the SUV: Matthew Borges, 32, and John Truhant, 31. Two San Antonio women were also in the vehicle, Elizabeth Alvarez, 27, and Frida Navarro, 24.
At a news conference on Saturday morning, New Haven Police Chief Renee Dominguez said Castellano, a 7-year member of the force, was a model officer: "He was the full package."
"I was his first supervisor... he worked very, very hard and he was very, very passionate," says Dominguez. "He knew everybody. He knew everybody to the point that we received a text message from a woman who lived in Westville Manor, his walking beat initially, saying her heart was broken."
